Saturday, September 28, 2013

Two points need clarification: 1) This is written from a retailer's not a consumer's point of view. I have backed Kickstarters as both a consumer and a retailer. this is why I am loath to back them as a retailer in the future. 2) We sell tabletop boardgames and RPGS. Video and online games are an entirely different animal.

Though not as hot as it was about a year ago, Kickstarter is still used by a lot of independent companies in the gaming industry, primarily independent and small press publishers, to publish new releases. Top tier publishers, such as Paizo, WOTC, Fantasy Flight, Konami, Bushyroad, etc., don't use Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites to crowdfund new releases as their cashflow is strong enough to not need to do so.

Unfortunately, there are four major reasons why stores, including outs, don't like to carry crowdsourced games.

1) Crowded marketplace. When I checked earlier today, there are 386 game projects listed on Kickstarter alone. While we have a strong customer base here, there is no way we, or most stores for that matter, have the market to absorb that quantity of new releases, must of which will fund in the next 30 days but not arrive for six months to a year after the backing period ends. this leads to #2.

2) Cash flow. Just like publishers, retailers struggle with cash flow as well. In the publisher's case, however, they get the the money up front and they spend it to produce the product. In the retailers case, if we fund a product, we front the money now, tying it up for several months until the product ships, removing cash from our accounts for six months or better, until we, and everyone else receive it, which leads to #3.

3) Lateness. There is a better than average chance that the publisher will not meet their projected shipping date. An analysis by Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School of Business of over 48,000 projects funded by Kickstarter found that over 75% of publishers missed their release dates. To cite one familiar example, Steve Jackson Games, which has a great track record of meeting release dates for their Munchkin game and other non-Kickstarter releases, used Kickstarter to fund a designer's edition of Ogre. Funding for this ended in May of 2102, with a projected release date of November 2012. It is now September 2013 and the 5500+ backers still have not received Ogre. In a way, this leads to #4.

4) Market saturation. Aldo Ghiozzi of Impressions Game Distribution Services, who has worked with small press game publishers for a number of years, is one of the most knowledgeable people I know in the field of independent gaming distribution. According to Ghiozzi, the average RPG release, either via Kickstarter or some other method, will sell between 150-250 copies ( A year ago or so, Kickstarter had a halo effect whereby RPGs published through it might sell up to double the amount they would if sold stright into distribution. This effect appears to have subsided though) with maybe another hundred sold direct through the company's website or at conventions.and a boardgame about 600 to 700 copies, 1000 or more copies only if a runaway success pulling in over $300,000. Ergo, if a company's RPG Kickstarter pulls 300 backers or a boardgame does 600, that pretty much saturates the expected market for that particular product. Only if the product proves that rare runaway success (Cards Against Humanity, FATE, 13th Age), would a store expect to see more than the publisher already has.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Pre-release weekends for Magic always take a lot out of a
store as they require quite a bit of pre-planning regarding how many events you
plan to run (3 if you are a Core Store, up to 6 if Advanced), when you are
going to run them, what youwill offer
as prize support (WOTC requires a minimum of 2 booster packs into the prize pool
per player but encourages stores to add more), where will you run it (many
stores limit attendance to available seating, others rent out locations to handle
expected overflow attendance) and most importantly, staffing.Having an appropriate number of people on
hand to run the event makes the difference between having a smoothly running
event and one that has you pulling your hair out.

Friday, September 13, 2013

According to this article on Examiner, the D&D movie (Yes T|HAT D&D Movie) was not really planned as a movie. Courtney Solomon, the producer, had really visualized Dungeons and Dragons as a television series, but felt that TSR was trying to run out the clock on his option on the property and made the movie as a stop gap in order to retain the rights.

Incidentally, according to no less than Margaret Weiss, TSR converted Dragonlance to the Saga System to avoid Solomon making a Dragonlance movie. Apparently the fear at TSR was that Solomon would claim the rights to DL were included with his rights to Dungeons & Dragons so changed the system to keep the rights to Dragonlance in case negotiations with the Jim Henson Company, among others, progressed

Sunday, September 8, 2013

We hosted the 2013 Magic Celebration or, as WOTC called it
on Twitter #MTGCelebration, Saturdaywith about 18 happy players but no more
sales than we would have during a typical Saturday.Similar to most stores with which I have
discussed the MTG Celebration, turnout ran much lighter than it would for a
pre-release or Launch Day..On the plus
side we have6 new players show up and
fill out DCI cards, making about a third of our playerseither comparatively new or, as several
commented, people who had not played magic for several years and wanted to get
back into the game.

One comment I heard from several other stores, and thank
goodness it didn’t happen here,related
to players complaining about the giveaways for the event. You would think
people would be happy, maybe not with the free half deck, but certainly with a
free 2014 Core booster and the opportunity to receive more boosters just for
winning games of Magic, at no financial cost to themselves, but apparently
not.At some stores, players complained
about the packs given out and/or the lack of a promo card for the event.It appears we have trained those who have
played Magic (and other CCGs) to expect a promo card tied to a particular
event, and, if there is not one, they feel slighted, even when the event is
free.

One problem I noted was that, according to the instructions
sent with the Celebration materials, stores should run players in pods of 6,
sending out a new group whenever the store had six people ready to play.Unfortunately, the way the event formatted
for reporting in DCI Reporter, stores would have to have at least 8 players in
the event and submit it as a Swiss style event, with players assigned to an
opponent for each round.This format defeated
the overall casual ambiance of the
Celebration and I heard of players complaining about the more structured
formatting used at some stores.Several
stores figured out a work-around to this by entering all players into DCI
Reporter and matching them for the first round and either have them play each
other or give them all “byes”, then submit the event after one round.Hopefully, for the next Celebration, it will
be sanctionable as a casual event, so that we only need to enter players names
into it and report the event much like we do for casual play now, without
having to force a structured tournament on the format.

No idea how the Achievement Cards went over at other stores
but since WOTC really wanted people to tween the #MTGCelebration hashtag as
well of pictures of the event (and people promoting our events and store on
Twitter and Facebook is always a good thing), we offered an extra booster pack
for each 5 achievements they marked off, meaning that, even if you lost all
your matches, you could walk off with one , and maybe two, more boosters, as
long as you were willing to get on your social media accounts during the event.I don’t know how highly #MTGCelebration
trended on Twitter but I was surprised at the number of people who completed
all the achievements, with two of them even creating Twitter accounts while at
the store.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Continuing with the zombie theme, we have Rotted Capes, a new superhero RPG, similar to the Marvel Zombies comics, in which the Z-virus has invaded the world and turned many of the most powerful superheroes in the world into flesh devouring zombies. You are all that is left to stand against them.

Also the Numenera Player's Guide from Monte Cook. The core book is already sold out so grab this while you can.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

GTS Distribution sent out an email last week announcing
thatthey had secured the exclusive
distribution to the first print run of Kittens in a Blender, now from Redshift
Games (which ran a Kickstarter to get the game back into production waaaay back
in the spring of 2012).No indication as
to when Kittens would re-release in the email.It necessitated a trip to the GTS website to find we can expect it
sometime next month.

Though I have heard good things about the company, I do very
little business with GTS, maybe one order a year as I find that my three main
distributors, plus some orders place directly with the manufacturer, suffice
for the store’s needs.I thought about
upping my orders with GTS, just to have access to Kittens but have decided
against it for the moment for the following reasons:

1.It
doesn’t dominate the category.For all
intents and purposes, WizKids and HeroClix form the collectable miniatures game
category.Since WOTC discontinued its
D&D miniatures line, noting has challengedWizKids in this segment of the market and, for better or worse, if you
want to carry WizKids, you have to deal with Alliance. Same thing in the
strategic board game category. Though it doesn’t dominate as it used to,
Mayfair Games still outsells any other boardgame manufacturer I carry and Days
of Wonder comes close.If I want to say
I carry strategic board games, I really need an account with Alliance.Redshift Games, even with Kittens in a
Blender, doesn’t come close to dominating a market segment.

2.Customers aren’t asking for it.Cards Against Humanity is a game that I view
as an Amazon exclusive.Despite the
demand, the company chooses to sell solely through Amazon.No problem with that, it is their game and
their choice on how to sell it.However,
we had enough customers coming in asking for the game that we chose to buy it
through Amazon, paying the full price, marking it up and reselling it to our
customers.Target has had a similar deal
with Mayfair Games for the Star Trek Catan game for the past year.Again, their choice.In the last 6 months, I have only had one
person ask for the Star Trek Catan game and they wanted to purchase it with
their birthday discount.If we had
customers asking for ST:C, I would have started using Target as a supplier for
it as well.Would I have liked to stock
it?Certainly?Am I bothered by the store’s inability to
stock it?A bit, but not enough to
modify our channels of distribution to carry it.That’s how I currently look at KIAB.If I actively used my GTS account, sure I
would stock it.As it is, demand
currently doesn’t justify it.